Roger” federer> admitted that the North American hard-court swing leading to the US Open is different as compared to the others. Speaking in Cincinnati where he lost to Andrey Rublev in the third round, the Swiss champion said: “I am happy to be back on the court.

It’s totally different from the grass courts and clay courts we have seen. So this is the beginning to a long, long hard court swing.” Rublev was asked if there was something he was happy with and something he needed to work on: “I don’t even know what to say.

It’s tough to say something when you don’t even expect to play on this tournament and then everything goes completely in a different way. But I don’t know. It’s just more I try to focus on myself to just to do my best every day to focus on the things that I need to improve and most likely that’s it.”

On Daniil Medvedev, Rublev added: “Last time we played was, like, three or four years ago that he beat me easily. So tomorrow is gonna be all the pressure on him. I will try to enjoy. I will try to do my best tomorrow, and we will see what’s gonna happen.”

Federer had reached the finals last year in Cincinnati losing to Novak Djokovic. The Basel native will head into the fourth calendar Major of the year as the third seed behind the world No. 1 Novak Djokovic and world No. 2 Rafael Nadal.